Julie & Julia - Julie Powell

Julie & Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen

Oh wow. What in the world took me so long to read this? As I picked it up the other day, I tweeted: I love food, I love blogs. Obvious match. Indeed it was.

Julie Powell, is a nearly-thirty year-old (temp) secretary living in a small apartment with her husband, Eric and their cats and pet snake. Her unsatisfactory life drives her to literally cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. Additionally, she starts a blog to chronicle the process.

Her food sometimes turns out great, sometimes awful, but it continues to be the one thing that motivates her every day. It even garners her some press; first CBS, then a slew of others, including The New York Times food columnist, which thrills her. During that year, she cooks for her not only her husband, but her friends and family, as they share in the project with her.

(After cooking for a slew of friends one night, they sat around drinking wine afterward): "...none of us knew for sure what kind we were, exactly, but as long as we were the kind that could sit around eating together and having a lovely time, that was enough." (p.115)

As if it weren't enough to be cramming 524 recipes (French food, no less) into 365 days, Julie and Eric also move to a different (smaller) apartment during the whole project. (Whew!)

This is a great book. I laughed out loud, I cringed at times, I smiled a lot (Julie is a proud Democrat and many of her colleagues are Republicans and she makes many remarks in regards to that fact) and genuinely rooted for her throughout her journey. Ultimately, it was probably the greatest thing she ever did as she landed a book deal, and was able to quit her secretarial job at the "government agency."

Just one final thought: if I were going to embark on a project such as this, and cook my way through any cookbook, it certainly would NOT be French food.